


the flame that burns on the edge of time (a piece of memory that shakes on the river)

by setgo



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (very temporary), Character Study, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Gen, Happy Ending, I Think About Byleth's Possible Character Arc For 3000 Words, No Romance Because Byleth Is Their Teacher, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, One Shot, Temporary Amnesia, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27575585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setgo/pseuds/setgo
Summary: The last thing Byleth remembers is falling.Their body screaming in pain, every fiber of the star-stenched being lighting on fire as they disintegrate into the ravine. The earth swallows them whole, a single gasp of the land before darkness cloaks them entirely.And, then.They die.Five years is a long time to float.
Relationships: Golden Deer Students & My Unit | Byleth, Jeralt Reus Eisner & My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth & Sothis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	the flame that burns on the edge of time (a piece of memory that shakes on the river)

The last thing Byleth remembers is falling.

Their body screaming in pain, every fiber of the star-stenched being lighting on fire as they disintegrate into the ravine. The earth swallows them whole, a single gasp of the land before darkness cloaks them entirely.

And, then.

They die.

* * *

The first thing Byleth feels is nothing. They do not exist anymore, after all.

They never did, only a shell of a person. A placeholder for what was supposed to come.

A body, and nothing more.

A body?

They do not have a body. They do not _have,_ period.

(Is that the nature of such things? They wonder.) 

Byleth, or what would become it, drifts through a memory. A canyon, a home, amongst her children. Though most days she sleeps, when she awakes she finds her children surrounding her with their all-encompassing love. Brighter than any star she knew, she sees them. She loves them, with all understanding of the word.

"Mother, you're awake!"

She yawns, blinking slowly down at her daughter, "Good morning, Seiros. How's my little star?"

Seiros beams, true to endearment, and holds up a chain of five-petaled flowers to Sothis, "I made this for you, mother!"

It's a truly beautiful thing. The delicate white blooms have not yet realized that they have been severed from their roots, and hold secure in their embrace. Sothis smiles, and dips her head low to allow her daughter to place the crown with all the pomp of a true coronation.

"It's lovely, Seiros."

"I made it all by myself! Well - Indech helped me find the flowers, but I made it!"

Sothis ruffles one hand through Seiros' hair, noting the matching flowers adorning her daughter's ears, "Do you know where your siblings are now?"

"They're outside."

Sothis slips from her chambers and to the outside world, to the Canyon she had fallen into so many centuries ago and built a family from.

Cichol is there, too, puffing out his cheeks in indignity - and it doesn't take long to figure out why. His robes are soaked, emerald hair pressed against his face and forehead as he storms forward.

"Mother! Macuil pushed me in the lake again!"

Sothis sighs, sending a gentle wind spell to ripple through his hair and clothes and blow the water away, with the side effect of leaving her son with an expression not unlike an annoyed cat. Seiros snorts, and Sothis has to restrain herself from doing the same as Cichol hurriedly smooths his hair out.

"It's not nice to laugh, Seiros."

"Sorry." Seiros says, clearly not sorry. Cichol sticks his tongue out when he thinks Sothis isn't looking.

"Come now," Sothis places her hands on her children's shoulders, begins to guide them back inside. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Back home, they begin to walk. It isn't far, and Sothis quietly amuses at the childish teasing as Cichol laments another lost fight to his brother.

 _How long do you intend to sleep?_ A familiar someone asks.

Seiros looks up. Sothis is struck with the feeling, a premonition that something is utterly, terribly wrong.

She is awake, is she not?

Her eyes are open. She's at home, in Zanado, as she always has been, with her children.

 _Their children,_ Byleth whispers. These are not their children, this is not their home. Where have they gone, after so long? _How long had it been?_

"Mother, what's wrong?" Seiros cuts through, wide-eyed and concerned at her mother's pause. Her face, twisted in concern, a knife through Sothis' stomach.

The Red Canyon seems too bright all at once, the brightly painted brick and towering square sculptures alien and towering. It isn't called the Red Canyon. Not yet.

"I - "

_\- can't stay here. I don't belong here. I don't know you. I don't know you._

"Mother, are you alright?"

"I - "

"Mother?"

"I'm... not -"

Sothis is dead.

"Mother, you can't leave me." Seiros stands, an age and fury beyond her years overtaking her form with a long-leaning shadow, "I won't let you."

_I don't want to be here._

They do not want, but still, yet still…

"I won't let you leave me again!"

"I'm not -"

Sothis looks down at her trembling hands, unsteady on her feet. _A body?_

No, they have no such thing. _She_ has not had one for a long time, she has had her claws and bones and teeth dismembered and torn apart into weapons to rip at the very fabric of the world. At her children, her people, her home.

_Sothis is dead._

Byleth opens their eyes, sees the red-stained canyon, and knows it is not their home.

_"Mother -!"_

* * *

Sothis does not have a father; she was born of the stars in a collision of dust and light in the milky cradle of the universe itself. She fell to the earth and created a home from dust and nothingness by the power bestowed through her fall and the wish for something else to be besides emptiness.

She does not have a father.

But _they_ had one, they are certain.

One foot steps on the weeping darkness. A hand grasps at their side, searching for a blade, searching for a steady hand and a guiding voice.

He is gone now, like so many others.

They gasp, a body. A body, a body, their body. Their lungs suck in nothing at all, but it is a start. A body. Not hers, _theirs._

Yet even now, something is missing that cannot be replaced.

"Kid. You awake?"

It is raining, Byleth can tell from the steady drumbeat of droplets hitting their tent. Their father stands above them, calloused hand resting on his hip. Byleth wipes away wayward strands of blue hair from their face and looks up.

"C'mon, we've got a mission. I've got breakfast ready."

They nod and peel away slightly-damp covers from their bedroll. The mission itself is nothing special, "taking care" of bandits, though there's notable caveat in their client's status as a minor noble, and the Jeralt Mercenaries have never shied away from a payday.

Byleth pulls a cloak over their usual attire and flips the hood over their head, trying to quash the sinking feeling that something is terribly wrong.

A feeling?

_They don't have -_

Byleth picks at their breakfast, sheltered alongside their fellow mercenaries beneath a dripping tarp.

Their father stands above them, holding an empty bowl and an appraising expression.

"You're more spaced out than usual, kid."

"...Sorry. What's after this?"

"We'll head west to Remire. Got a few jobs lined up there."

"And then?"

Their father quirks an eyebrow, at the question Byleth has never asked before. Why are they asking it? Have they cared? Have they ever done anything beyond swing the sword they are pointed at?

 _(A sword is an extension of your body,_ Byleth remembers their father saying. Worn, calloused hands guiding their tiny shoulders as they had felt the weight of the training sword for the very first time. They wonder if the opposite can be true.)

They care, at some point, in some faint silhouette of a future, maybe. They aren't here, in this grayed-out camp with an empty shell of a heart and a father who can give all he is but receive nothing in return. They aren't here. They shouldn't be here. They have somewhere else to be -

Spears and arrows pierce the earth, and Byleth remembers falling.

_Oh._

"You're dead," they realize.

"Yes," their father doesn't hesitate. A crimson flower blooms at his back, staining the worn amber a deep and dry red. "Kid. You need to wake up."

"The battle - one of those sorcerers threw me down the ravine," Panic is as unfamiliar an emotion as any other, save perhaps for grief, but it wells up inside them nonetheless, "I'm dead."

"You aren't dead yet."

The cavity where a heart should be aches with longing, _no heartbeat,_ "I wasn't even alive in the first place."

"Yes," Jeralt stares at them, grips their shoulders almost like he did when he was alive, steadfast and unwavering and so very cold, "you _are."_

He holds them close, embracing them in the familiar scent of sandalwood and rain filling their lungs. His body is unmoving, but it does not feel that way, gentle despite the years.

"I love you, kid. You know that, right?"

He did. He does. They know.

Byleth hugs their father tighter, and wishes this moment could last forever.

The world dissolves again, and Byleth breathes in. A body: their arms, legs, lungs, and eyes are working again, they think, as tears stream down her face with a stubborn refusal to stop. And even now, they weep.

* * *

They sit at the edge of a table. The gardens of a monastery circle around them, perfect and still and silent. The sky shows no sun, but the world around them remains as bright as day.

A girl with green hair leans lazily against the table, waves of emerald hair cascading down her back like a veil. She sips a cup of tea and glances appraisingly up at her companion.

"So here you are."

Byleth doesn't have a favorite tea, but they don't really like this one. They take a sip anyway and try to hide their distaste at the flavor.

Sothis notices anyway, and lets out a short _hmph,_ "No taste, really."

"It's too bitter."

 _"Honestly,"_ she huffs, "You are just like a child. Worse than Seiros."

 _Funny coming from her._ Byleth thinks.

"Then those were..."

"My memories, yes."

"And Seiros?"

"Seiros was… a needy child. She threw tantrums when she didn't get what she wanted." Sothis looks away, regretful, "Not much has changed, in that regard."

"And then I died." No need for pleasantries. Sothis preferred it that way, and Byleth didn't know them. And their students found it refreshing - 

(...Their what? Byleth quashes the thought.)

"You _fell._ An important distinction." Sothis corrects, snapping Byleth back to their conversation.

"I don't have a heartbeat." Beat. _No heartbeat_. "Maybe I wasn't alive at all."

"You are alive, Byleth. A heartbeat has nothing to do with that." Sothis responds, with entirely too much confidence. She punctuates with another sip, as if that proves her point.

"I was under the impression," Byleth replies, without a trace of irony, "that was one of the key qualifications."

"Petty pedantics. Do you feel alive, Byleth?"

"I…"

There's a correct answer, of course. Byleth can almost envision it in front of them, as easy as reaching out and clicking _yes._ It's the way they angle themself in so many conversations. They know to study the curves of people's faces, the quick glances of their eyes if displeased, and so Byleth knows when to readjust. Parry. Riposte. Readjust. _Yes,_ they should say, and Sothis would be pleased, but it would be a lie.

Sothis would be able to tell.

"...I never really thought about it." They say instead.

The world around them, idyllic and desolate, grows ever greener. A void where the sky should be beats down upon them, a gash in the world where the star has abandoned them, and Byleth's throat feels dry even as they stare at their half-empty cup. They don't know. They're _used_ to not knowing.

"I miss you, Sothis."

"Then imagine how much they must miss you."

There is an emptiness where Byleth's heart should. Where that gash has spread across their mind and soul leaving only an aching abyss where they think they might have loved, once. Falling had felt familiar, the same emptiness they had always known.

_What are you grieving for?_

Seiros, Sothis - no, they've never been to Nabatea. That sadness is for someone else, long scarred and drifting down the foggy streams of consciousness. 

But they have not felt so empty in so long. _Who are you mourning?_

Jeralt? Yes, they miss their father, they miss him so much the new, old kind of cavity feels even deeper, but there's _something else._ A longing that runs deep, even when they have forgotten.

"Your eyes must open now, and you must find the strength to stand upon those legs of yours," Sothis recites and waves one hand, refills their cup with something that tastes a little sweeter, which Byleth thinks they might prefer, "The people of this world are lost in an abyss of suffering. They weep as well."

Byleth knows this place. This garden, with its well-manicured bushes, in its coldness and its warmth. _(Fódlan in a nutshell, the good and the bad,_ their memory supplies, but little else.) Who had said that?

"I'm… forgetting someone, aren't I." It is not a question, they think. A slow realization.

"More than a few someones." She responds.

"You know, don't you? You and I are one, aren't we?" They ask, already knowing the answer. The weight of mourning is too much to bear, and they almost miss the dull _nothingness_ , "You - you would be better, out there. It's who they all are asking for."

Byleth isn't sure who _they all_ are, the void of something they think they care about, but they're sure Sothis would be better for it. A goddess, a beginning. _No heartbeat. No heartbeat!_ They do not _have -_

Sothis finishes her tea in an irritated sip, wincing at the heat, then places it down with a sharp _clink._ The ribbons twisting around her wrist smack the edge of the tablecloth, and Byleth wonders how the fine porcelain hadn't been broken, "Honestly! Must you have everything spelt out for you?"

"...Probably, yes." For all their skill with a blade, Byleth themself is fairly blunt.

She sighs, then leans against the table to poke two cold fingers against Byleth's forehead with an exasperated fondness, "Even if our hearts are as one, you breathe and think and love as any other creature. You're _you,_ Byleth."

Are they?

_Am I?_

"You're you, and you are alive."

It strikes Byleth that they do not know what being alive should feel like.

(Could it be, that all along -)

"You always have been."

Byleth is missing something else, they are certain. They are missing something, someone, somewhere. Only the sound of breathing in their lungs and their unsteady footsteps. But there is supposed to be something else.

 _But I'm sure, no matter where you end up -_ a face, a _group_ of faces, flash in their mind. A kaleidoscope of black and gold and endless colors that beam upwards and fills their body with a pure, endless affection.

Their heart is elsewhere.

Their heart has _always_ been elsewhere, in something else. In the hilt of a blade, with an appraising smile on their father's lips, amongst...

_You'll come running at the chance to see your adorable Golden Deer again, right?_

Byleth had often wondered, in the mornings before the rest of the mercenaries awoke where they stared out at the violet hues of the sun rising and could not feel its rays, where they would go. What purpose would guide them, as some of the more high-minded fighters spoke about. If, perhaps, someday, they would know what that was.

"Your body is awake. Your eyes must open now."

Something alights.

"I shall see you again, Byleth. Please take care of yourself," Sothis smiles, and Byleth's heart feels full.

Upon the bank of a river, five years late, they wake up.

* * *

"You… weren't seriously sleeping for all that time, were you?" Claude asks. He leans against the balcony of their Garreg Mach reunion, eyeing his teacher with the same curiosity he might eye an interesting mixture of chemicals, or an old book. The war meeting had gone… as well as it could, Byleth supposes. Ailell is a hard sell on even the best of days, and it certainly isn't _the best of days._

"I think I died."

It probably didn't help that Byleth can't do _subtlety._ As refreshing as their students may find it, conniving politicians hoping to twist every advantage from a situation are much more suited for deception.

Whatever Claude had been expecting, it wasn't that. "Ah." 

"I dreamt a lot, I think."

"Oh?" He raises one eyebrow, "and what about?"

"Dying."

"Ah, cheery stuff."

"It wasn't just about dying. Living, too." Byleth reaches up to their own chest, halfheartedly searching for a pulse they know isn't there. "And what that means."

Claude hums thoughtfully, "I don't usually remember my dreams."

"Maybe if you slept more."

Claude spreads own hand across his chest in mock offense. "Was that _snark?_ And from my own teacher, too!"

"I'm not technically your teacher, anymore." Byleth says, not really meaning it. Their Golden Deer had jumped immediately back into old routines, still their steadfast professor in their eyes. They've never been the tallest person, but having to look up to talk to nearly half their students is an unfamiliar feeling. They've had a lot of those, lately, so maybe it's not such a bad thing. At least they doesn't need to pick up lost items anymore.

"Are you kidding me? You'll always be our teacher. And, for what it's worth... I'm glad you came back." Claude's silver tongue, that one that poisons his foes and protects his allies with equal fervor, rarely struggles to find the words, but he seems at a loss for once. Byleth is proud of how much he's grown. "All of us are."

"I know."

"And not just for the war effort." 

They smile, faintly.

"...I'm glad too."

They're alive.

They could get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> video game company: (makes a blank slate protagonist with no arc or personality)  
> me, under my breath: it could be that deep...
> 
> anyway i have a lot of thoughts about how byleth could be a very interesting character. and so i did the obvious thing and wrote nearly 3000 words about it. please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


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